


and if you don't know what to make of this

by allthelight



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: AU, Canon Compliant, Dadriel, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, as fluffy as lord asriel gets anyways, slight fluff I suppose?, very mild angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23147506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelight/pseuds/allthelight
Summary: "“A fighter,” is what Asriel says, smiling a little, but deep down there’s a nugget of worry that seems to be growing in his chest. Often, he told Lyra to just be still while they have talked, just for a moment, but now that she is, he finds it disconcerting. Lyra should never be still."A trip to Jordan and Asriel finds Lyra in a sicker state than he was expecting. Some things cannot be buried. A story in which Asriel attempts to be a father.
Relationships: Lord Asriel & Lyra Belacqua
Comments: 4
Kudos: 73





	and if you don't know what to make of this

**Author's Note:**

> hello! I'm back! This whole coronavirus panic has left me needing many a distraction and what better one than to write? 
> 
> This might be slightly ooc but I'm hoping it's not toooo bad. I'm working off the idea that Asriel was a bit softer when Lyra was younger, and it was before he lost the plot a little bit with the whole 'I wanna kill God' idea.
> 
> Comments are greatly appreciated but I understand if you're busy! I hope you enjoy!

The picture falls out of the envelope, accompanied by a note with a date. Asriel runs his finger over it lightly, letting it linger for a moment on the scowl that his daughter directs towards the photographer. A brief smile comes to his face. He doesn’t allow himself many moments like these, too afraid of the weakness they bring, but he enjoys them still. He turns the picture to Stelmaria, allowing her to see.

“What do you think?” He asks her, something like pride in his voice. “One of these days I wonder if she’ll smile in them.”

Stelmaria peers at the picture intensely, her amber eyes committing the details to memory. “You’d be disappointed if she did.”

He chuckles and doesn’t deny it, staring at it for a moment longer before putting it back in the envelope and placing it with the other pictures he has of his daughter. They then go into a chest, which he secures with thick leather straps so that nothing will be displaced on their upcoming northerly journey. He stands back for a moment, thinking deeply.

“You think that we should go visit Jordan,” Stelmaria comments as she stands beside him, inspecting the rest of their cargo.

“I don’t see why not,” Asriel says cheerfully, in an uncharacteristically jovial mood. “We haven’t been in a while. It would be good to reconnect with the scholars. It may even help with our finances.”

“Just say why you really want to go,” she huffs. “You want to visit the girl.”

“Would it be so wrong if I did?”

“You must be getting soft.”

He decides not to reply, not deigning to give her a response. She wishes to go just as much as she does, though like him she would never admit it. The photogram has him _feeling_ about Lyra. She’s five now, and he hasn’t seen her in person in a good few months. She seems to grow so fast, whenever he visits he almost can’t believe it. Not necessarily in height, but in quickness, intelligence, the way she moves so much faster and is seemingly gone before one’s eye can settle properly on her.

Asriel would never utter it aloud, in fact would never dare to utter it in his own head, but he likes spending time with her in a strange sort of way. She’s becoming her own person in the world, complete with thoughts and plans and adventures. Already she can concoct the most wonderful of stories, and he has no doubts she will be an excellent teller of them, able to spin webs of deceit with a moment’s notice. It makes him proud.

“We shall leave in the morning,” he says, and the smallest part of him wishes that he could control the clocks and make it come sooner.

-x-

His good mood lasts all the way to Jordan until he is greeted by the Master himself, who tries his best to seem pleased at Lord Asriel’s unexpected arrival but instead seems mildly irritated. Asriel knows the man’s views on his comings and goings, and yet he doesn’t greatly care. The good Master is indeed in possession of Asriel’s daughter and would do well to remember it.

“I wish you would have let us know that you were coming, my lord,” the man says, trying and failing to hide his annoyance.

“It was rather a last-minute plan, I’m afraid.” Asriel tries to keep his tone light in order to match his mood, but there is no denying the edge it has taken on. “And it is always good to see old friends.”

“Yes, of course. Please, do sit down.” The Master’s raven watches Stelmaria who gazes unblinkingly back. A moment ago she was hopping up and down, righteous on her human’s shoulder. Now it’s like she hides, almost perching behind the Master’s neck.

“It’s alright. I appreciate that you’re a very busy man.” He says it charmingly enough to get back into the man’s favour – who knows when he might be required again? “I’m actually here to see Lyra.”

“Lyra?” The Master’s eyebrows rise up into his hairline and quickly fall again but his daemon is not so quick and cannot stop the surprised squeak that comes from her beak. “You wish to see Lyra?”

“Yes.” The tone is still charming but Stelmaria has advanced forward ever so slightly. “Will that be a problem?”

“No, of course not, Lord Asriel.”

“You don’t need to have her brought to me for dinner this time,” he says lightly. “Just tell me where I can find her.”

There’s a chuckle, though Asriel doesn’t know what he finds so funny. “You can find her in her room, my lord.”

“Her room?” He remembers Lyra’s attic room, up a long twisting staircase that the last time he was here he caught her sliding down the banister of. It’s almost impossible to keep her in there, for even at five years old she has no aversion to climbing out of her window and slinking along the balustrade. It’s almost the afternoon, and the sunshine outside is warm and inviting. He does not believe that Lyra is in her room, and he finds it hard to believe that such an intelligent man as the Master would believe she is still there, also. “Forgive me, but I don’t see how you could be so sure.”

“The girl has a virus of some sort. Nothing serious, I assure you,” he hastens to add, “a very mild case but something that means she is confined to her bed for at least the day. Mrs Lonsdale, as you can imagine, has expressed relief.” He looks at Asriel curiously. “I understand you’re leaving soon, my lord. Are you sure you still wish to see her? You don’t want to catch something.”

“I’m quite sure,” he says tightly. “Thank you. I shall take my leave of you now.”

He leaves with his head held high, letting Stelmaria take care of the disapproving looks for him as they go.

-x-

“He was wrong,” Stelmaria says disapprovingly as she paces around Lyra’s bed. “It is serious.”

“I can see that,” Asriel says, though not unkindly. His voice is hushed so as not to wake the small child trussed up in blankets. Her face peeks out from above them, so stark and pale that she almost blends in with the pillowcase, and probably would entirely if not for her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat.

Stelmaria sniffs the air. “The physician should come and see her.”

“Surely the master would have ordered that already?”

“Then he is lying to you,” she growls, something fierce in the back of her throat that mirrors the something fierce in Asriel’s chest.

“He wouldn’t dare.”

“Then he doesn’t know. Either way, the physician should come.”

Lyra groans in her fever sleep and throws out an arm out from the bundle, almost smacking Stelmaria on the nose. She laughs softly.

“A fighter,” is what Asriel says, smiling a little, but deep down there’s a nugget of worry that seems to be growing in his chest. Often, he told Lyra to just be _still_ while they have talked, just for a moment, but now that she is, he finds it disconcerting. Lyra should never be still. She doesn’t belong indoors.

Stelmaria continues nose around Lyra’s bedside and for a brief but still very real moment, lays her head on the girl’s chest. Asriel’s hand ghosts over his own, something far deeper than what he knows stirring in its depths.

Lyra’s daemon shivers and whimpers, curled up in the crook of her neck. With an impossible gentleness, Stelmaria manoeuvres him closer to Lyra’s skin and pulls the blanket up even further until the shivering ceases and both Lyra and Pantalaimon seem more at rest.

“We should leave,” Asriel says brusquely, suddenly at his limit. “We’ll get a physician and then we shall-”

Then he breaks off, unable to voice what was supposed to come next. Stelmaria looks at him, eyes soft, and nods in understanding.

“Yes,” she tells him, coming back to his side. “I know.”

-x-

“Everybody out!”

Lord Asriel’s command carries clearly through the vaulted kitchen, echoing off the stones. Those who had been too absorbed in task not to notice his imposing presence when he was silent now stare at him dumbfounded. For a moment nobody dares to speak. Nobody wants to, and if they had the choice they would just do as he says. They’ve all heard the rumours of the great man, but hardly any who work here have seen him in the flesh. They do not want to give up this chance so easily.

“My lord,” someone says from somewhere Asriel cannot see. “We have to prepare the dinner, you understand. We en’t got the time to just _leave_.”

“I’m aware of that,” Asriel says, perfectly polite, but his tone leaves no room for doubt. “You shall be back within the hour, I promise. Until then I need this space.”

There are a few murmurs but they quickly die down with lack of support. Some of the dogs – for they are always _dogs_ – try to yap and whine but Stelmaria looks at them evenly, gaze unwavering, and it isn’t long before they quieten down. Soon everybody, servants and daemons alike, are shuffling past Asriel and Stelmaria to get to the door and though they huff and puff very lowly, nobody dares meet his eyes.

“I wouldn’t expect to be welcomed back here soon,” Stelmaria says drily, after the last terrier has shaken her way out. “You should know better than to interrupt the way the college works.”

“It will be fine,” Asriel says, not thinking about it too much. Even if he wasn’t distracted, he would never lose sleep over it. “Now help me find the ingredients, won’t you?”

Stelmaria sniffs with displeasure and then obediently sniffs for another reason, moving around the kitchen deftly as though she has ever set foot in one before.

Asriel looks in and out of cupboards clumsily, not quite as graceful as the snow leopard. He is a man built for the outdoors, anything smaller than the open air and he feels contained, not as sure of himself. Oh, he can hold a room, can command it as easily as he can command everything else, but it feels unnatural. It feels even more so to be in a kitchen. Even now, as he searches through cupboards for a pan and the drawers for a knife, there’s an unfamiliarity in his movements. At this he is not good, not naturally, and it’s unsettling.

Once the ingredients and utensils are found, lined up neatly on the worktable in amongst the discarded dinner preparation, he feels much better. Filling a pan with water to set it to boil, chopping the ginger, all things that he knows how to do and can do very well.

“It’s been many years since we’ve done this,” Stelmaria says when the water is bubbling away, her voice barely audible over it.

“Has it?” Asriel says, eyebrows raising as he continues chopping. “I don’t remember.”

Stelmaria makes a noise in the back of her throat, aware of his lies, but says nothing and watches the water instead. Asriel adds the ingredients to it and stirs, seeing his own reflection swirling in the mixture. It’s almost a surprise. It’s like he’s someone he does not know.

While it boils he slices some lemon, thinking of the small girl in the small attic bed. Is she happy here, he wonders? Does she have fun? Is this still the safest place for her? These are thoughts he doesn’t have often – his mind is usually filled with more heretical things – but thoughts that plague him every time he sets foot on Jordan land. There are things he wishes to do, wishes to say, but these are things he never does. He couldn’t. He has never been told how.

He adds the lemon to the concoction, noticing how the smell has filled the room. No doubt the dinner will be tainted with the faint taste of it, and the scholars will grumble and then the staff will grumble but he doesn’t care. This is more important. Besides, nobody dares to question Lord Asriel Belacqua about anything. Well, maybe once they did, long ago, but look at how well that turned out. They haven’t done it since.

“You’re adding less this time,” Stelmaria says, her tone even but eyes not. She watches the pan suspiciously. “It was stronger before.”

“Lyra is smaller,” he says, not looking at her, looking into the mixture and seeing the past in it. “It would be too much.”

Stelmaria laughs, a dry chuckle. “Sometimes I think you forget just who she is.”

“And who would that be?”

But she won’t be baited into a fight, knowing that it’s not what he needs right now, and she simply sways her tail back and forth and watches the mixture intently, as if her wellbeing depends entirely on its success. They are not very good at sentimentality; practicality is all they have.

They pass the rest of the time in silence, though it’s hardly the comfortable kind. Asriel paces back and forth, restless in the extreme. Something gnaws at his insides, twists at his guts. Stelmaria paces, too, but on the other side of the worktable, throwing concern-filled glances his way every so often.

Lyra was ill once, when she was a baby. It wasn’t like this. It was dark and cold and before the whole Edward nonsense. She must have been a month old, maybe two, still just a tiny little thing with great wide eyes that wanted to swallow the world whole. Asriel had been visiting her, something he was apt to do more regularly in those days, and had noticed immediately how warm she was in his arms, how dull her eyes had seemed.

 _A chill is all it is, my lord._ He had been assured. _Babies get them all the time. They catch them and throw them away. She’ll be as right as rain in no time._

Only she hadn’t. She’d gotten a cough, and not a gentle one, either, but a great rattling one that shook her whole body and scratched her throat so she couldn’t even cry. The sound had been disturbing, and even after he had left her he couldn’t get it out from inside his head; the rattling cough and pathetic cries had spun around and around and kept him awake, and nothing he did would allow him to go back to sleep.

One night he hadn’t been able to take it, and something had possessed him, spirited him out of his bed to beside his daughter’s. He had lifted her out of her cradle, her body limp and hot, and had held her to him, feeling her searing heat through his shirt.

With Lyra still coughing he had begun to pace gently around her room, more swaying than anything else, as if dancing to some invisible tune. He hadn’t really known what he was doing, only that it was working, and Lyra’s coughs had quietened and she had turned her head closer to his chest and seemed ever so content to fall asleep there. It hadn’t been long enough, though, and he still hadn’t let her go. Instead he had swayed like that, with Stelmaria at his side, for some time more, and when they stopped it was only to sit in the armchair by the window. He had sat straight, two arms around the baby, and had watched her sleep all through the night until the sun had kissed their faces the next morning.

It had frightened him. It’s something he will never admit to anyone, even now, but it had shaken him deep to his core and he hadn’t known why. It was something about holding her tiny, frail body in his large hands as she shook and shivered, and knowing there was nothing he could do except watch and wait. He is a smart man, and he can do incredible things, and yet the one thing he had wanted to do most was the one thing that he couldn’t and the failure he had felt haunts him still.

“Asriel.” Stelmaria breaks him out of his thoughts, and he follows the nod of her head to where the pan is bubbling away. “It’s ready.”

Silently, he strains the ingredients, and pours the mixture into a teacup. The rest he leaves in the pan, to be reheated later when it is required. He puts the teacup on a tray and steps back to admire his work.

“You should put some honey in it,” Stelmaria says. “She said it was too bitter without it.”

“Yes,” he says, voice quiet. “I remember.”

He adds a spoonful of honey, and swirls it around, feeling ever so unlike himself. Stelmaria’s gaze burns his skin and he has to resist the urge to itch. Lord Asriel Belacqua doesn’t make soothing drinks for sick little girls and he doesn’t get so lost in the past that he can’t remember his way out of it. It’s just not who he is.

The ache in his chest, Stelmaria’s quiet watching, all tell him differently. It’s unsettling to be so unsure.

-x-

“Lyra,” he says, shaking her firmly on the shoulder. “Lyra, wake up.”

She groans and doesn’t open her eyes. “Father?”

Asriel almost responds to it, that’s the thing, and it scares him how willing he was to do so. He almost says _yes, Lyra. It is me_ but he isn’t her father. He made it this way himself.

“No, Lyra. Wake up.”

Her bleary little eyes open and she takes a few seconds to focus on him. “Uncle?” She says, and he can see the bewilderment in her face, the surety that she’s dreaming. “Why are you here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he tells her brusquely. “Now what’s the matter with you?”

“I’m ill,” she says forlornly, Pantalaimon as a little mouse in the crook of her neck still. “And they said I couldn’t go out and play.”

“Stuck in this bed, are you?”

She nods and it’s the most pitiful thing he has ever seen. “I could go out, I said I could, but they wouldn’t let me.”

“I see.” The amusement he feels warms his heart, though he is careful to have no trace of it on his face. “Sit up now, would you? I’ve brought you something.”

Lyra’s eyes light up at the mention of being brought something; usually on his trips, when he remembers, he makes a note to pick up something she’ll find interest in. She struggles to sit up in bed, cheeks turning even rosier with exertion.

“I had a dream,” she tells him, eyes fever-bright. They are so brown, so dark, so unlike his or Marisa’s. He likes the difference.

“Did you?”

“Yeah. I had a dream that my father was here, that he was the one shaking me. I didn’t know what he looked like, ‘cause he’s dead and I en’t ever seen him, but I knew it was him.” She shakes her head. “But it was just a dream. It was you.”

Asriel wants to respond to that, though he doesn’t know what he would say or indeed how he would say it. Some of the things his daughter says, even at five years old, have such a power to cut him.

“Only me,” he says lightly. He hands her the steaming cup with the concoction inside of it. “Now drink this.”

“Is this what you brought me?” And she wrinkles her nose in such displeasure. “It smells funny.”

“It will make you better.”

“Really?

“Yes.”

She looks at him for a moment, hands curled around the cup that’s cooled just enough by now to be tolerable to her child’s hands. There is such a look of trust in her face, of devotion, that he has to look away.

“Who made it?” She asks.

“Why?”

“Mrs. Lonsdale gives me horrible things to drink when I’m ill,” she tells him. “I won’t let her trick me.”

 _No, child. Nobody could trick you._ Except it’s not entirely true because isn’t that what he does every time? Doesn’t he deceive her constantly? Lyra is a smart child but she is blinded by love. Much like himself, he supposes.

“I made it,” he tells her. “So it’s not a trick.”

Lyra’s mouth hangs down. Pantalaimon turning into an ermine with the surprise. “ _You_ made it?”

He huffs. “Don’t make a thing of it. Drink it.”

She looks into the cup and then with a small sigh, takes a sip. Instantly her mouth screws up as the taste hits her tongue, exactly the way her mother’s had all those years ago when she had first tried it.

“It’s _disgusting._ ”

He hears Stelmaria chuckle from beside him, and knows she’s remembering what he’s been unable to forget. Asriel sighs and reaches for the other item on the tray, the small pot of honey. The teaspoon he had added was never going to be enough, like how it wasn’t back then.

“Here,” he says, voice tight with the memory. “Add some more of this. It should be bearable now.”

Lyra takes another suspicious sip but then hums her agreement, draining half the cup, only stopping when Asriel chides her to slow down.

“It’s not _too_ bad, I suppose,” she says, eyes glittering as she enjoys the dance.

“There is some more in the kitchen that you can have later.”

She nods and then rubs her eyes with a clenched fist. “My head isn’t sore as much, now.”

“Then try and sleep some more. It would be beneficial for you to get some proper rest.”

She wants to fight, he can tell, by the way her little face screws up in protest and her mouth opens, as if ready to contradict him. Asriel meets her silent protest unwaveringly, simply pulls the bedsheets around her as she snuggles beneath them. _You have met your match in me, child._

“ _Sleep_ ” he tells her, tone leaving no room for argument. “The sooner you get better, the sooner you can go outside once again.”

“That would be good,” she yawns. Stelmaria nudges Pantalaimon into the duvet, also, making sure he is warm and as close to Lyra as can be.

He awkwardly presses a hand to her forehead, feeling the dry heat on it, and instantly feels transported back to the time when the sick little baby was pressed against his chest and all he could do was walk and walk and hope that she would be alright. He quickly withdraws his hand and steps back.

“Don’t go,” Lyra wails. “Please don’t go.”

“You’re going to sleep,” he says, voice not as strong as he would like. “What do you expect me to do?”

“I dunno,” she mumbles, almost gone now.

“You don’t know?” But there’s a small smile on his face and he settles into the small chair by Lyra’s bedside and watches as she succumbs to sleep once more, the gentle sounds of her breathing soothing in their own way.

When she is sure Lyra is truly asleep, not pretending the way she sometimes does to get carried to her bed, Stelmaria raises her head from her position on the floor next to Lyra’s head, and turns to Asriel.

“You know it can’t always be like this, don’t you?”

Asriel doesn’t look at her, too busy watching his daughter sleep and comparing it to the photogram he holds in his hand. She is much less fierce in her sleep; her features are softer and the curious expression fades into something like joy and he wonders what she dreams of.

“Asriel?”

“I heard you,” he whispers, but distractedly. “She looks like her, don’t you think? She was given to us because she looked too much like me, but I think that’s no longer the case. I think she very much looks like her.”

“She is every bit who she always has been,” Stelmaria says, not in any kind of meaningful way. Her voice is so low that even Asriel has to strain to hear it. They are taking a risk, talking like this, even with their hushed voices. Lyra could wake at any moment and hear and yet they don’t stop.

“She’s a headache,” Ariel says. “She always has been.”

“And yet you love her, still.”

He watches as Lyra’s chest rises and falls slowly, the way it does in her sleep. He doesn’t feel much these days, and it’s a deliberate choice that he doesn’t mind, but he feels something for her. Would he call it love? That’s not a question he can answer. He doesn’t know a thing about love. Once he did, or he thought he did, but he was proven wrong. It would kill him to go there again.

He makes a non-committal noise in his throat, something strangled. “What else do you suggest I do?”

“I suggest you do _nothing,”_ Stelmaria stresses, watching over Lyra, too. “It will be much safer that way.”

“And forget about her?”

“You cannot have her. Continuing as you are will hurt both of you in time.”

“Maybe,” he tells her, voice distracted, barely there. He knows she is right, that this semi-relationship he has with his daughter can’t continue on the line it is now, but he doesn’t like the thought. He must so as he did with her mother and harden his heart, move on. It will be better for everybody in the end.

“I don’t like this either,” she tells him softly. “But what other choice do we have?”

There isn’t one and they both know it. Thankfully, she doesn’t make him say it.

-x-

“ _Get away from me!”_

Lyra’s scream fills the entirety of the room, and immediately Asriel is out of his chair, but it’s Stelmaria who gets there first. Very softly she calls Lyra’s name, and rubs her head against the little daemon’s, who is a very small rabbit at the nape of Lyra’s neck.

“Lyra,” Asriel says, firmly but lowly, grasping her shoulder in a much gentler touch than he is accustomed to. “Lyra, wake up. Completely.”

Her brown eyes bolt open and, unseeing, she squeals some more. Eventually Asriel’s looming form comes into focus for her and she relaxes at once, turning to jelly under his touch.

“I had a bad dream,” she whimpers, fresh tears spilling on her cheeks. Lyra isn’t a child who cries, Asriel knows this as much as he knows anything, and so whatever has been conjured up by her flu-addled brain has honestly scared her. He knows the power dreams can hold over a person, and if he were somebody else he may be able to tell her that he knows what it feels like, to be so entrenched in a nightmare that you feel like you might surely die from it. He may even be able to tell her how he survives it.

“Dreams aren’t real,” is all that he manages instead, and everything else dies on his tongue.

“It felt real,” she shivers, though her heat burns Asriel’s hand on her shoulder.

He frowns. “It can be like that with a fever. It can feel real but it isn’t. It’s important in life to be able to tell what’s real and what is not.”

Lyra looks up at him the way Stelmaria looks up at him, full of surprise and wariness, wondering where he is planning on going with this.

“Can you always tell what’s real?” Lyra asks, voice thick with tears and cheeks red and the way she asks it, the way it’s said, does something funny to Asriel’s chest.

“No. I made a mistake,” is what he says, though he’s not really saying it to her, but Lyra is hardly aware. “Once. And after that, never again.”

He squeezes her shoulder and brings the blankets around her once again, bundling her up with inexperienced hands.

“It was about my parents,” she sniffs. “I was with them and then there was bad people trying take me away.” Her eyes drift to her daemon, a small hedgehog on her pillow. “They _touched_ Pan.”

A lump in his throat that he cannot swallow past. He goes to say something but then stops and starts again. “It could never be real. Your parents are dead.”

She nods thoughtfully, as though this is rational, but there’s a small look if disappointment on her face, and he can’ help but feel a lick of irritation. What else is she expecting from him?

“You would always tell me what’s real, wouldn’t you?”

The truth, it would seem.

He looks down at this tiny little child and sees not the five-year-old girl but the five-hour old baby that Marisa had handed him very unceremoniously in the dark hallway of that house she shared with Edward.

_“Take it and go,” she had hissed. “Be quick about it, before you are seen.”_

_“Why are you in such a hurry?”_

_“This child cannot exist. Look at that face; that’s your face, nobody else’s. Not mine and certainly not his. Of course, it’s yours. So you have to leave with it and leave now and never come back here again.”_

_“Wait, Marisa, wait-”_

_“No. You cannot wait.”_

_“You could at least tell me if this is our son or our daughter I am holding.” Silence. “A boy or a girl?”_

_She had faltered then, just for a moment, but composed herself quickly. “A girl. Now go.”_

Lord Asriel Belacqua with a baby girl in his arms that he was suddenly a father to. He wonders, not very often, would have happened if Edward had never found out. Would he be Lyra’s father, then?

He can’t be her father now. He has nothing to give her. Stelmaria looks at him softly, her eyes apologetic.

“Yes,” he lies, because it hurts less than anything else. “Do not worry. It was just a dream, Lyra. Nothing more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments/ Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day!


End file.
